Edward Fillebrown

Merchant tailor, abolitionist, Vigilance Committee member

Boston Public Library

Quick Facts

Significance:

Merchant tailor, abolitionist, Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

December 28, 1822

Place of Death:

Brookline, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

August 1, 1900

Place of Burial:

Boston, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Hope Cemetery

Merchant tailor Edward Fillebrown served on the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that assisted freedom seekers coming to and through the city on the Underground Railroad. 

Born in 1822, Edward Fillebrown grew up in Boston. After working as a bookkeeper for a time, he became a tailor and soon established his own merchant tailor business, Fillebrown and Wallis, on Washington Street. He married Mary Melcher in 1853 and had seven children with her.¹

Fillebrown also became involved in the local abolition movement despite its widespread unpopularity at that time. His antislavery views and work “incurred the displeasure of some of his customers, thereby injuring him in a business way."² A family genealogist wrote that Fillebrown:

became an ardent anti-slavery man in the time that tried men’s souls; he saw the assaults on Garrison, saw Anthony Burns carried from the Boston Court House back into slavery, and, when it was rumored that Phillips’ house was to be attacked, he went with others armed and prepared to defend it. Thus he showed the courage of his convictions in the intensely unpopular cause of the abolitionists.³

The rumored attack on Wendell Phillips’ house mentioned above likely took place in the aftermath of the John Brown Anniversary Meeting. In December 1860, abolitionists gathered at Tremont Temple to commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of John Brown, hanged for treason for his assault on Harpers Ferry. An angry mob attacked this and subsequent meetings as well as threatened the lives of Phillips and other abolitionists in the days and weeks following.⁴

Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Fillebrown joined the Boston Vigilance Committee. This group provided much needed assistance to freedom seekers who arrived in Boston after escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Though Fillebrown’s name did not appear on the official broadside published by the organization, Austin Bearse recorded it on his “Doorman’s List” of committee members. Among other things, Bearse guarded the doors at committee meetings and only allowed known supporters in. According to committee records, Fillebrown donated money several times to support the work of the organization.⁵

Fillebrown passed away in August 1900, survived by five of his children. His remains are interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in Boston.⁶

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Footnotes

1. Fillebrown's address is mapped as his business address at 30 Dock Square in 1850. His home address in 1850 is 8 Oliver place.  “Edward Fillebrown,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 1, 1900, 8; Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011; The National Archives in Washington, DC; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Boston Ward 9, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 337; Page: 223b; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, page 154; Charles Bowdoin Fillebrown, Genealogy of the Fillebrown Family: With Biographical Sketches, ( Boston: Fillebrown, 1910 ), 81-82 Archive.org
2. “Edward Fillebrown,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 1, 1900, 8
3. Charles Bowdoin Fillebrown, 82
4. “Edward Fillebrown,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 1, 1900, James Stewart Brewer, Wendell Phillips: Liberty’s Hero, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1986), 213-215, Archive.org.
5. Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 3; Dean Grodzins, "Constitution or No Constitution, Law or No Law: The Boston Vigilance Committees, 1841-1861," in Matthew Mason, Katheryn P. Viens, and Conrad Edick Wright, eds., Massachusetts and the Civil War: The Commonwealth and National Disunion (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 73, n.57.; Francis Jackson, Account Book of Francis Jackson, Treasurer The Vigilance Committee of Boston, Dr. Irving H. Bartlett collection, 1830-1880, W. B. Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives, Archive.org, pages 31 and 83.
6. “Edward Fillebrown,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 1, 1900, 8; “Funeral of Edwin Fillebrown,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 3, 1900, 5.